The present invention relates to equipment utilizing heavy manway or access covers and, more particularly, to apparatus for facilitating the installation and removal of such covers having an elliptical or other non-circular configuration.
Moisture separator reheaters and the like are examples of equipment which employ manway openings to enable access to the interiors of such equipment. Generally moisture separator reheaters include an outer shell with a manway opening and an internal header with an elliptical manway about which is mounted a sealing ring. Additionally, a standard industry practice has been to provide a gasket on the internal surface of the manway sealing ring and an elliptical cover which closes the manway in the header from the inside in order thereby to obtain the advantage of internal pressure to effect satisfactory sealing of the manway opening. Such earlier covers usually were hinged from inside the header. However, hinged manway covers often do not align properly to locate the gasket due to slack in the hinges. This can result in leakage during operation with resultant adverse effects on performance of the equipment and the necessity of replacing or repairing the gasket. Furthermore, manway covers are generally large, heavy and cumbersome to handle and with the prior type of arrangement a crane or hydraulic apparatus is required to mount the cover on its hinge. Still further, in some equipment, such as ones in which the headers contain tube bundles, the space in the headers is limited and insufficient to accommodate internally swinging covers.